He’s so pleasant and obliging, that he doesn’t find it odd that he’s talked to Mao, Stalin, Truman, and more. This makes the events all the more ridiculous, as it presents Allan’s involvement in the nuclear programmes of half a dozen countries as completely normal and brings out his unfussed character. I originally read this maybe four years back, when my mum passed me her copy, and even with a vague idea of what was coming, it was still side-splitting.īoth the “present day” adventure involving a suitcase, a gang, several accidental murders, an elephant, a very incompetent police force, and a lot of alcohol, and “the past” where Allan drinks his way through conversations and mishaps with nearly all the significant leaders of the 20th century are told in such a matter of fact tone. This is very much my sort of humour – coincidence, ridiculous but consistent logic, and the whole thing treated as perfectly normal.
There is no way to described this book other than a hysterical farce.
And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police.Īs his escapades unfold, we learn something of Allan’s earlier life in which – remarkably – he helped to make the atom bomb, became friends with American presidents, Russian tyrants, and Chinese leaders, and was a participant behind the scenes in many key events of the twentieth century. Slowly but surely Allan climbs out of his bedroom window, into the flowerbed (in his slippers) and makes his getaway.
Sitting quietly in his room in an old people’s home, he is waiting for the party he-never-wanted-anyway to begin.
It all starts on the one-hundredth birthday of Allan Karlsson.
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